Evolutionary processes involved in the diversification of chelonian and mammal polystomatid parasites (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea, Polystomatidae) revealed by palaeoecology of their hosts

Neotropical Turtle Blood Flukes: Two New Genera and Species from the Amazon River Basin with a Key to Genera and Comments on a Marine-Derived Parasite Lineage in South America

“…The connection of these parasites to a reasonably small group of extant tetrapods, which have a well-documented and fascinating fossil record dating to the Triassic Period (Pangea), should provide some interesting questions. A good, taxonomically robust, precedent for sustained and focused study of turtle and parasite cophyly and adaptation are the series of papers detailing the turtle-infecting monogenoids of Polystomatidae Gamble, 1896, especially members of Polystomatinae Yamaguti, 1963, which are the only monogenoids known to infect sarcopterygians, including turtles (Verneau et al, 2002;Badets et al, 2011;He´ritier et al, 2015;Tinsley and Tinsley, 2016;Tinsley, 2017). Comparable studies, those similarly exploring host specificity, biogeography, and cophyly, focused on any single parasite group that has a complex (2-host) life cycle and that matures in turtles are absent from the literature.…”

First record of viviparity in polystomatid flatworms (Monogenea: Polystomatidae) with the description of two new species of Madapolystoma from the Madagascan anuran hosts Blommersia domerguei and Mantella expectata

“…Sequences of K. manampoka, Eupolystoma alluaudi (de Beauchamp, 1913) and Eupolystoma vanasi Du Preez et al, 2003 , were also selected for rooting the tree according to Raharivololoniaina et al (2011) . Sequence alignment was done with the help of ClustalW ( Thompson et al, 1994 ) implemented in the MEGA software version 7 ( Kumar et al, 2016 ) with regard to the 28S ribosomal secondary structure defined for polystome species ( Badets et al, 2011 ; Héritier et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Because it has been shown that polystomes coevolved with their hosts since their origin in the Palaeozoic age ( Verneau et al, 2002 , 2009a ; Héritier et al, 2015 ), investigating their phylogeny can provide relevant insights into the diversification of amphibians over ancient and recent geological periods ( Badets et al, 2011 ). Out of the 345 known anuran species from Madagascar, 86 species from a few selected localities were screened for polystomes ( Verneau et al, 2009b ).…”

Constraining the Deep Origin of Parasitic Flatworms and Host-Interactions with Fossil Evidence

“…Thus, a cophylogenetic approach has been used (Hafner et al, 1994;Page et al, 1998;Light and Hafner, 2007), which may in turn provide a robust evolutionary timescale for apparent cospeciating symbiotic species when the timescale of the host lineage is (comparably) well constrained (Moran et al, 1993(Moran et al, , 1995. Due to the lack of well-preserved specimens in parasitic flatworms, most molecular clock studies have relied on the host fossil record to inform divergence estimates (Verneau et al, 2002(Verneau et al, , 2009aOlson et al, 2010;Badets et al, 2011;Héritier et al, 2015). More rarely biogeography (focusing on vicariance events) has been invoked to constrain molecular clock estimates of parasitic flatworms Waltari et al, 2007;Badets et al, 2011;Martínez-Aquino et al, 2014).…”

“…There is at least some evidence that extinction might also have played a role in parasitic flatworms and other helminths over longer timescales as several parasiteehost associations documented in the (sub)fossil record are now evidently extinct (Upeniece, 2001(Upeniece, , 2011Poinar and Boucot, 2006;Wood et al, 2013). Furthermore, molecular studies with greater taxonomic coverage have particularly focused on biomedically or economically important taxa such as Schistosomatidae (Lockyer et al, 2003b;Orélis-Ribeiro et al, 2014) or particular lineages with a high host specificity such as Polystomatidae (Bentz et al, 2001(Bentz et al, , 2006Badets et al, 2011Badets et al, , 2013Héritier et al, 2015). To better Figure 6 Ultrametric tree of neobatrachian polystomes inferred from MULTIDIVTIME (Modified after Verneau et al (2009b).).…”